Been there, done that...lint is such a HUGE annoyance to my life. We're in a 2nd floor condo where the dryer vent ducting goes to the roof through the attic over 20 feet and several elbows. My husband bought the condo years before we met, and the ducting was clogged after several years. At the time, he decided to disconnect the vent from the duct. The resulting moisture did some damage to the cabinetry (swelling of the particle board, even under layers of oil-based paint). Soon after we married, he decided we needed to fix the problem correctly. He went up into the attic and disassembled the ducting, brought it outside, and blew it out with his air compressor. I pushed some cleaning tool through it as well. We can't be doing this regularly! I mean preferably, never again! So, I had him put a filter -- a gallon paint strainer -- over the dryer vent where it connects to the machine. This clogs every month or so, we pull the machine out, disconnect the vent, clean the strainer, and put it back. This is still an annoying chore, but not the nightmare of dealing with the whole duct run. My husband had a cool idea, that what we need to do is sew a new, longer strainer that tapers to a skinny point, so that even when it clogs at the point, there can still be air flowing past the clogged strainer, and we should be able to go longer between cleanings. We got a new dryer last summer, and pulled the ducting out of the attic to clean it -- but it was already clean as a whistle. So, our secondary filter system has kept the duct run clean for 9 years. I found you can buy secondary lint traps with a door that opens to clean them out, but we don't have room to install the box in our laundry room, and I don't think it would work any better or be easier to clean than our homemade filter. When I redo the floor, I plan to put magic slider thingies under the dryer feet to make it easier to move in and out, plus I won't want to gouge my new floor. I have researched other solutions. People claim that solid metal vent will maintain better airflow than pleated, but I think it will still clog because we need 2 90-degree elbows to get it connected to the duct in the wall. And if it clogs, how do we pull out the machine with a non-stretching vent? If we could move the duct in the wall to match the dryer vent outlet, that would eliminate 2 elbows and would probably help... I also found you can install a secondary fan in the ducting near the exit, increasing the airspeed in long ducts so the lint won't clog. They cost $150-200, but if I never had to clean out the duct run or pull out the dryer to clean my makeshift secondary lint trap ever again, it would be well worth it. I also think that our ducting is leaky somewhere, because rooms on the other side of the wall (our master bath) get crusted with lint all the time. Finding and sealing those leaks would probably improve airspeed some, plus save me tons of work cleaning the lint all the time. I think the additional fan is the way to go. In 2 other areas where we replaced an ineffective low-cfm cheap fan with a high-cfm good one, like the hood over our cooktop, it made an amazing difference, night and day. Here is a link that might be useful: example of dryer duct fan

We've rarely been "in-state" when we've purchased our homes. The homes/neighborhoods that have worked the best have been in areas where we had several trips to check things out. The one house that ended up not working well was a last minute situation and we really didn't have any time to visit the area. My suggestions for neighbors/neighborhood is visit the area - don't rely solely on the internet or your realtor. If the neighbors are out in their yard, go talk to them (I did this for our current house in Louisville - they were great and gave us a wonderful assessment of the neighborhood). Drive around the area and find the local houses of worship, groceries, Target, Costco, etc. My DH and I had so much fun driving around during our first trip to Louisville, looking at all the different neighborhoods and finding stores that when we moved in July, I already knew where most things were. If you have kids in school, do your homework on-line before narrowing down possible areas. There are a ton of web sites measuring schools' success (although I'm not a big one on just looking at test scores). For our latest move, I was checking on high schools so I looked for graduation rate, # of AP classes available, etc. States typically have an on-line education department so you can find out a lot of info from them. Another valuable tool we found was asking future colleagues for their suggestions. So we asked them about places to live, easiest way to get into work, doctors, dentists, etc.

That's nice. No businesses allowed here.

I'm not sure I would put much stock in the poster...s/he just registered today and is advertising his/her site...a no-no as far as I know even for a supposed non-profit!